The sad thing is that not many of the soaps are not available from the beginning.

Another World had to reach out to fans when they did most of their Anniversary Tributes - they begged fans for tapes or contact old actors who might have had stuff. I know that Victoria Wyndham somehow had some old clips.

TPTB never really planned on saving soaps from the beginning. Even the ones that were put on kinescopre or tape got burned or destroyed or they just kept using the same tapes over and over - taping over the previous stuff.